Carpenters, woodworkers and other handymen who work with wood as well as other materials, often need a workbench or table which can be utilized to hold or maintain workpieces. Ordinarily, these workbenches include a vise which clamps portions of the table top together to secure the workpiece on the table. One such device is that sold by the assignee of the present invention under the WORKMATE trademark. These tables are versatile, provide secure clamping, and are compact and convertible to dual height positions.
The workbench ordinarily includes two vise screws with handles on each one. The vise screws, via the handles, are operated by the user. Accordingly, the user must crank the handles in order to clamp a workpiece in-between the device or table members. Thus, if the table members are spaced from one another and a smaller workpiece is to be clamped, the user must rotate or crank the screw members until the smaller workpiece is contacted. This is cumbersome and in some cases inconvenient. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a screw mechanism which provided a quick clamping sliding movement to cover a significant distance when a large gap exists between the two table members. Also, in the event an irregular workpiece is to be clamped, the table members can rapidly moved to abut the irregular workpiece and then be rotated to a final tightened position.